A number of `no-proposition' approaches to the liar paradox find themselves implicitly committed to a moderate disquotational principle: the principle that if an utterance of the sentence `$P$' says anything at all, it says that $P$ (with suitable restrictions). I show that this principle alone is responsible for the revenge paradoxes that plague this view. I instead propose a view in which there are several closely related language-world relations playing the `semantic expressing' role, none of which is more central to (...) semantic theorizing than any other. I use this thesis about language and the negative result about disquotation to motivate the view that people do say things with utterances of paradoxical sentences, although they do not say the proposition you'd always expect, as articulated with a disquotational principle. (shrink)

Montague and Kaplan began a revolution in semantics, which promised to explain how a univocal expression could make distinct truth-conditional contributions in its various occurrences. The idea was to treat context as a parameter at which a sentence is semantically evaluated. But the revolution has stalled. One salient problem comes from recurring demonstratives: "He is tall and he is not tall". For the sentence to be true at a context, each occurrence of the demonstrative must make a different truth-conditional contribution. (...) But this difference cannot be accounted for by standard parameter sensitivity. Semanticists, consoled by the thought that this ambiguity would ultimately be needed anyhow to explain anaphora, have been too content to posit massive ambiguities in demonstrative pronouns. This article aims to revived the parameter revolution by showing how to treat demonstrative pronouns as univocal while providing an account of anaphora that doesn't end up re-introducing the ambiguity. (shrink)

There is a prominent line of work in natural language semantics, rooted in the work of Hamblin, in which the meaning of a sentence is not taken to be a single proposition, but rather a set of propositions—a set of alternatives. This allows for a more fine-grained view on meaning, which has led to improved analyses of a wide range of linguistic phenomena. However, this approach also faces a number of problems. We focus here on two of these, in our (...) view the most fundamental ones. The first has to do with how meanings are composed, i.e., with the type-theoretic operations of function application and abstraction; the second has to do with how meanings are compared, i.e., the notion of entailment. Our aim is to reconcile what we take to be the essence of Hamblin’s proposal with the more orthodox type-theoretic framework rooted in the work of Montague in such a way that both the explanatory utility of the former and the solid formal foundations of the latter are preserved. Our proposal builds on insights from recent work on inquisitive semantics, and it also contributes to the further development of this framework by specifying how the inquisitive meaning of a sentence may be built up compositionally. (shrink)

Approaches to anaphora generally seek to explain the potential for a DP to covary with a pronoun in terms of a combination of factors, such as the inherent semantics of the antecedent DP, its scope properties, and its structural position. A case in point is Reinhart’s classic condition on bound anaphora, paraphrasable as A DP can antecede a pronoun pro only if the DP c-commands pro at S-structure, supplemented with some extra machinery to allow indefinites to covary with pronouns beyond (...) their c-command domains. In the present paper, I explore a different take. I propose that anaphora is governed not by DPs and their properties; it is governed by predicates and their properties. To use a metaphor from dynamic semantics: discourse referents can only be ‘activated’ by predicates, never by DPs. This conceptually simple assumption is shown to have far-reaching consequences. For one, it yields a new take on weak crossover, arguably worthy of consideration. Moreover, it leads to a further general “restatement of the anaphora question”, in Reinhart’s words. (shrink)

This article surveys a range of current views on the semantics of imperatives, presenting them as more or less conservative with respect to the Truth-Conditional Paradigm in semantics. It describes and critiques views at either extreme of this spectrum: accounts on which the meaning of an imperative is a modal truth-condition, as well as various accounts that attempt to explain imperative meaning without making use of truth-conditions. It briefly describes and encourages further work on a family of views lying somewhere (...) in the middle. On such views, an imperative will semantically determine, without having as its meaning, a modal truth-condition, which figures centrally in accounting for various aspects of its meaning. (shrink)

Davidsonian event semantics is often taken to form an unhappy marriage with compositional semantics. For example, it has been claimed to be problematic for semantic accounts of quantification Proceedings of the 16th Amsterdam Colloquium, 2007), for classical accounts of negation Semantics and contextual expression, 1989), and for intersective accounts of verbal coordination. This paper shows that none of this is the case, once we abandon the idea that the event variable is bound at sentence level, and assume instead that verbs (...) denote existential quantifiers over events. Quantificational arguments can then be given a semantic account, negation can be treated classically, and coordination can be modeled as intersection. The framework presented here is a natural choice for researchers and fieldworkers who wish to sketch a semantic analysis of a language without being forced to make commitments about the hierarchical order of arguments, the argument-adjunct distinction, the default scope of quantifiers, or the nature of negation and coordination. (shrink)

In this paper I will develop a view about the semantics of imperatives, which I term Modal Noncognitivism, on which imperatives might be said to have truth conditions (dispositionally, anyway), but on which it does not make sense to see them as expressing propositions (hence does not make sense to ascribe to them truth or falsity). This view stands against “Cognitivist” accounts of the semantics of imperatives, on which imperatives are claimed to express propositions, which are then enlisted in explanations (...) of the relevant logico-semantic phenomena. It also stands against the major competitors to Cognitivist accounts—all of which are non-truth-conditional and, as a result, fail to provide satisfying explanations of the fundamental semantic characteristics of imperatives (or so I argue). The view of imperatives I defend here improves on various treatments of imperatives on the market in giving an empirically and theoretically adequate account of their semantics and logic. It yields explanations of a wide range of semantic and logical phenomena about imperatives—explanations that are, I argue, at least as satisfying as the sorts of explanations of semantic and logical phenomena familiar from truth-conditional semantics. But it accomplishes this while defending the notion—which is, I argue, substantially correct—that imperatives could not have propositions, or truth conditions, as their meanings. (shrink)

Here, I offer a rapid overview of the theory of metaphor, in order to situate the contributions to this volume in relation to one another and within the field more generally.

This paper presents a new take on how argument dependencies in natural language are established and constrained. The paper starts with a rather standard view that (quantificational) argument dependencies are operator-variable dependencies. The interesting twist the paper offers is to eliminate the need for syntax that serves to enforce what the operator-variable dependencies are. Instead the role of ensuring grammatical and generally unambiguous forms is taken up by semantics imposing what are dependency requirements for any interpretation to go through at (...) evaluation time. With this viewpoint there emerges an essential need for localities as the hiding of (embedded) expression material, together with a (limited) form of garbage collection to release grammatical resources used in the current locality for reuse in subsequent localities. (shrink)

Situation semantics as conceived in Kratzer (1989) has been shown to be a valuable companion to the e-type pronoun analysis of donkey sentences (Heim 1990, and recently refined in Elbourne 2001b), and more generally binding out of DP (BOOD; Tomioka 1999; Büring 2001). The present paper proposes a fully compositional version of such a theory, which is designed to capture instances of crossover in BOOD.

Using the programming-language concept of continuations, we propose a new, multimodal analysis of quantification in Type Logical Grammar. Our approach provides a geometric view of in-situ quantification in terms of graphs, and motivates the limited use of empty antecedents in derivations. Just as continuations are the tool of choice for reasoning about evaluation order and side effects in programming languages, our system provides a principled, type-logical way to model evaluation order and side effects in natural language. We illustrate with an (...) improved account of quantificational binding, weak crossover, wh-questions, superiority, and polarity licensing. (shrink)

I propose the first strictly compositional semantic account of same. New data, including especially NP-internal uses such as two men with the same name, suggests that same in its basic use is a quantificational element taking scope over nominals. Given type-lifting as a generally available mechanism, I show that this follows naturally from the fact that same is an adjective. Independently-motivated assumptions extend the analysis to standard examples such as Anna and Bill read the same book via a mechanism I (...) call PARASITIC SCOPE, in which the scope of same depends on the scope of some other scopetaking element in the sentence. Although I will initially discuss the analysis in terms of a familiar Quantifier Raising framework, I go on to implement the analysis within an innovative continuation-based Type-Logical Grammar. The empirical payoff for dealing in continuations is that a simple generalization of the basic analysis gives the first ever formal account of cases in which same distributes over objects other than NP denotations, as in the relevant interpretation of John hit and killed the same man. (shrink)

This paper proposes that the meanings of some natural language expressions should be thought of as functions on their own continuations. Continuations are a well-established analytic tool in the theory of programming language semantics; in brief, a continuation is the entire default future of a computation. I show how a continuation-based grammar can unify several aspects of natural language quantification in a new way: merely stating the truth conditions for quantificational expressions in terms of continuations automatically accounts for scope displacement (...) and scope ambiguity. To prove this claim, I exhibit a simple finite context-free grammar with a strictly compositional semantics in which quantificational NPs are interpreted in situ but take semantic scope over larger constituents. There is no Quantifier Raising (nor any use of a level of Logical Form distinct from overt syntax), no Cooper Storage (or similar mechanisms used in many recent HPSG, Categorial, or Type-logical treatments), and no need for type-shifting (as in Hendriks' Flexible Types account). Continuations also provide a natural account of generalized coordination that does not require either type-shifting or type polymorphism. Compositionality issues are discussed in some detail. (shrink)

Individuals play a prominent role in many metaphysical theories. According to an individualistic metaphysics, reality is determined by the pattern of properties and relations that hold between individuals. A number of philosophers have recently brought to attention alternative views in which individuals do not play such a prominent role; in this paper I will investigate one of these alternatives.

This paper argues that the theory of structured propositions is not undermined by the Russell-Myhill paradox. I develop a theory of structured propositions in which the Russell-Myhill paradox doesn't arise: the theory does not involve ramification or compromises to the underlying logic, but rather rejects common assumptions, encoded in the notation of the $\lambda$-calculus, about what properties and relations can be built. I argue that the structuralist had independent reasons to reject these underlying assumptions. The theory is given both a (...) diagrammatic representation, and a logical representation in a novel language. In the latter half of the paper I turn to some technical questions concerning the treatment of quantification, and demonstrate various equivalences between the diagrammatic and logical representations, and a fragment of the $\lambda$-calculus. (shrink)

This paper presents a variable-free analysis of relational nouns in Glue Semantics, within a Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) architecture. Relational nouns and resumptive pronouns are bound using the usual binding mechanisms of LFG. Special attention is paid to the bound readings of relational nouns, how these interact with genitives and obliques, and their behaviour with respect to scope, crossover and reconstruction. I consider a puzzle that arises regarding relational nouns and resumptive pronouns, given that relational nouns can have bound readings (...) and resumptive pronouns are just a specific instance of bound pronouns. The puzzle is why is it impossible for bound implicit arguments of relational nouns to be resumptive? The puzzle is highlighted by a well-known variety of variable-free semantics, where pronouns and relational noun phrases are identical both in category and (base) type. I show that the puzzle also arises for an established variable-based theory. I present an analysis of resumptive pronouns that crucially treats resumptives in terms of the resource logic linear logic that underlies Glue Semantics: a resumptive pronoun is a perfectly ordinary pronoun that constitutes a surplus resource; this surplus resource requires the presence of a resumptive-licensing resource consumer, a manager resource. Manager resources properly distinguish between resumptive pronouns and bound relational nouns based on differences between them at the level of semantic structure. The resumptive puzzle is thus solved. The paper closes by considering the solution in light of the hypothesis of direct compositionality. It is argued that a directly compositional version of the theory is possible, although perhaps not desirable. The implications for direct compositionality are considered. (shrink)

Although ‘glue semantics’ is the most extensively developed theory of semantic composition for LFG, it is not very well integrated into the LFG projection architecture, due to the absence of a simple and well-explained correspondence between glue-proofs and f-structures. In this paper I will show that we can improve this situation with two steps: (1) Replace the current quantificational formulations of glue (either Girard’s system F, or first order linear logic) with strictly propositional linear logic (the quantifier, unit and exponential (...) free version of either MILL or ILL, depending on whether or not tensors are used). (2) Reverse the direction of the standard σ-projection from f-structure to meaning, giving one going from the (atomic nodes of) the glue-proof to the f-structure, rather than from the f-structure to a ‘semantic projection’ which is itself somehow related to the glue-proof. As a side effect, the standard semantic projection of LFG glue semantics can be dispensed with. A result is that LFG sentence structures acquire a level composed of strictly binary trees, constructed out of nodes representing function application and lambda abstraction, with a significant resemblance to external and internal merge in the Minimalist Program. This increased resemblance between frameworks might assist in making useful comparisons. (shrink)

The core question behind this Frontiers research topic is whether explaining linguistic phenomena requires appeal to properties of human cognition that are specialized to language. We argue here that investigating this issue requires taking linguistic research results seriously, and evaluating these for domain-specificity. We present a particular empirical phenomenon, bound variable interpretations of pronouns dependent on a quantifier phrase, and argue for a particular theory of this empirical domain that is couched at a level of theoretical depth which allows its (...) principles to be evaluated for domain-specialization. We argue that the relevant principles are specialized when they apply in the domain of language, even if analogs of them are plausibly at work elsewhere in cognition or the natural world more generally. So certain principles may be specialized to language, though not, ultimately, unique to it. Such specialization is underpinned by ultimately biological factors, hence part of UG. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Pickel and Rabern (2016) argue that a dynamic Tarskian semantics resolves Fine’s antinomy of the variable without the radical consequences for semantics proposed by Fine (2003, 2007). While Pickel and Rabern’s basic insight—a parameter of discourse context that tracks occurrences of variable-binding expressions—is important, I will argue that their own Tarskian theory faces a destructive dilemma: either their theory does not resolve Fine’s antinomy as they propose, or their theory does not reflect the intuitive motivation for (...) what they call structured meanings. I suggest that in response to this dilemma we should reject one of the principles that generates Pickel and Rabern’s version of the antinomy. Here Pickel and Rabern’s insight has surprising, but salutary, foundational consequences for semantics. (shrink)

Attempts to characterize unarticulated constituents (henceforth: UCs) by means of quantification over the parts of a sentence and the constituents of the proposition it expresses come to grief in more complicated cases than are commonly considered. In particular, UC definitions are inadequate when we consider cases in which the same constituent appears more than once in a proposition that only has one word with the constituent as its semantic value. This article explores some consequences of trying to repair the formal (...) definitions. (shrink)

This paper advocates a generalized form of Expressivism, as a strategy for resolving certain metasemantic puzzles about identifying the semantic value of a context-sensitive expression in context. According to this form of Expressivism, speakers express properties of semantic parameters, and they do so in order to proffer those properties for cognitive adoption (acceptance) by their addressees. Puzzles arising from the pressure to say what a putatively context-sensitive expression refers to or denotes in contexts that do not seem to specify a (...) referent or denotation dissolve, once we appreciate that such attempts were ill-placed to begin with. Gibbard's Norm Expressivism, according to which speakers express properties of planning states or normative systems, can be regarded as a branch of this more general theory. I will however argue that Gibbard takes on commitments -- optional for the Expressivist -- that make it a bit hard to see how to distinguish his theory from a nuanced form of Subjectivism. (shrink)

This book combines insights from philosophy and linguistics to develop a novel framework for theorizing about linguistic meaning and the role of context in interpretation. A key innovation is to introduce explicit representations of context — assignment variables — in the syntax and semantics of natural language. The proposed theory systematizes a spectrum of “shifting” phenomena in which the context relevant for interpreting certain expressions depends on features of the linguistic environment. Central applications include local and nonlocal contextual dependencies with (...) quantifiers, attitude ascriptions, conditionals, questions, and relativization. The result is an innovative, philosophically informed compositional semantics compatible with the truth-conditional paradigm. (shrink)

Questions with a quantificational subject have readings that seemingly involve quantification into questions (called ‘QiQ’ for short). In particular, in single-wh questions with a universal quantifier, QiQ-readings call for pair-list answers, similar to pair-list readings of multiple-wh questions. This paper unifies the derivation of QiQ-readings and distinguishes QiQ-readings from pair-list readings of multiple-wh questions. I propose that pair-list multiple-wh questions and QiQ-questions both involve a wh-dependency, namely, that the wh-/quantificational subject stands in a functional dependency with the trace of the (...) wh-object. In particular, in a pair-list multiple-wh question, the wh-subject binds into the trace of the wh-object across an identity operator; in a QiQ-question, the quantificational subject binds into the trace of the wh-object across a predication operator. These operations give rise to distinct definedness requirements, which vary with the quantificational force of the wh-/quantificational subject. The proposed analysis explains a contrast in domain exhaustivity between the pair-list readings of multiple-wh questions and questions with a universal quantifier, while also doing justice to the intuitive similarities between these two types of questions. I further propose that the observed QiQ-effect in a QiQ-question is derived by extracting one of the minimal proposition sets that satisfy the aforementioned quantificational predication condition. The values of these sets determine whether the QiQ-reading is available and whether a QiQ-question admits pair-list answers and/or has a choice flavor. (shrink)

This paper revisits two fundamental issues in question semantics—what does a question mean, and how is this meaning compositionally derived? Drawing on observations with the distribution of wh-words in questions and free relatives as well as quantificational variability effects in question-embeddings, I argue that the nominal meanings of short answers must be derivable from question denotations, which therefore calls for a categorial approach to defining questions, including embedded questions. I provide a novel hybrid categorial approach to compose questions. This approach (...) overcomes the problems with traditional categorial approaches in defining bare wh-indefinites, composing multi-wh questions, and accounting for coordinations of questions. (shrink)

In §93 of The Principles of Mathematics, Bertrand Russell observes that “the variable is a very complicated logical entity, by no means easy to analyze correctly”. This assessment is borne out by the fact that even now we have no fully satisfactory understanding of the role of variables in a compositional semantics for first-order logic. In standard Tarskian semantics, variables are treated as meaning-bearing entities; moreover, they serve as the basic building blocks of all meanings, which are constructed out of (...) variable assignments. But this has disquieting consequences, including Fine’s antinomy of the variable and an undue dependence of meanings on language. Here I develop an alternative, Fregean version of predicate logic that uses the traditional quantifier–variable apparatus for the expression of generality, possesses a fully compositional, non-representational semantics, and is not subject to the antinomy of the variable. The advantages of Fregean over Tarskian predicate logic are due to the former’s treating variables not as meaningful lexical items, but as mere marks of punctuation, similar to parentheses. I submit that this is indeed how the variables of predicate logic should be construed. (shrink)

Quantification over individuals, times, and worlds can in principle be made explicit in the syntax of the object language, or left to the semantics and spelled out in the meta-language. The traditional view is that quantification over individuals is syntactically explicit, whereas quantification over times and worlds is not. But a growing body of literature proposes a uniform treatment. This paper examines the scopal interaction of aspectual raising verbs (begin), modals (can), and intensional raising verbs (threaten) with quantificational subjects in (...) Shupamem, Dutch, and English. It appears that aspectual raising verbs and at least modals may undergo the same kind of overt or covert scope-changing operations as nominal quantifiers; the case of intensional raising verbs is less clear. Scope interaction is thus shown to be a new potential diagnostic of object-linguistic quantification, and the similarity in the scope behavior of nominal and verbal quantifiers supports the grammatical plausibility of ontological symmetry, explored in Schlenker (2006). (shrink)

We design new languages, by and large, in order to bypass complexities and limitations within the languages we already have. But when we are concerned with language itself we should guard against projecting the simple and powerful syntax and semantics we have concocted back into the sentences we encounter. For some of the features of English, French, or Ancient Greek we routinely abstract away from in the process of formalization might be linguistic universals – the very features that set human (...) languages apart from all the other conceivable ones. How similar natural languages really are to formal ones is an empirical question for linguistics. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the thesis that alleffects of extra-linguistic context on thetruth-conditions of an assertion are traceable toelements in the actual syntactic structure of thesentence uttered. In the first section, I develop thethesis in detail, and discuss its implications for therelation between semantics and pragmatics. The nexttwo sections are devoted to apparent counterexamples.In the second section, I argue that there are noconvincing examples of true non-sentential assertions.In the third section, I argue that there are noconvincing examples of what (...) John Perry has called`unarticulated constituents''. I conclude by drawingsome consequences of my arguments for appeals tocontext-dependence in the resolution of problems inepistemology and philosophical logic. (shrink)

We present a general theory of scope and binding in which both crossover and superiority violations are ruled out by one key assumption: that natural language expressions are normally evaluated (processed) from left to right. Our theory is an extension of Shan’s (2002) account of multiple-wh questions, combining continuations (Barker, 2002) and dynamic type-shifting. Like other continuation-based analyses, but unlike most other treatments of crossover or superiority, our analysis is directly compositional (in the sense of, e.g., Jacobson, 1999). In particular, (...) it does not postulate a level of Logical Form or any other representation distinct from surface syntax. One advantage of using continuations is that they are the standard tool for modeling order-of-evaluation in programming languages. This provides us with a natural and independently motivated characterization of what it means to evaluate expressions from left to right. We give a combinatory categorial grammar that models the syntax and the semantics of quantifier scope and wh-question formation. It allows quantificational binding but not crossover, in-situ wh but not superiority violations. In addition, the analysis automatically accounts for a variety of sentence types involving binding in the presence of pied piping, including reconstruction cases such as Whose criticism of hisi mother did each personi resent? (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the relationship between the semantics of specificational and predicational sentences and the Connectivity effects they display. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of semantic and syntactic approaches to Connectivity (the ‘unconstrained-be theory’, the ‘question-in-disguise theory’, and the ‘unclefting theory’), concluding that a semantic theory of Connectivity is not only preferable, but necessary. The paper also discusses the implications of such a move regarding Binding phenomena (i.e., Principle A, B, and C effects): adopting a semantic theory (...) of Connectivity requires a theory of Binding which is different from the standard GB Binding Theory. (shrink)

What is the proper way to draw the semantics-pragmatics distinction, and is what is said by a speaker ever enriched by pragmatics? An influential but controversial answer to the latter question is that the inputs to semantic interpretation contains representations of every contribution from context that is relevant to determining what is said, and that pragmatics never enriches the output of semantic interpretation. The proposal is bolstered by a controversial argument from syntactic binding designed to detect hidden syntactic structure. The (...) following contains an exposition and consideration of the argument. (shrink)

What is the proper way to draw the semantics‐pragmatics distinction, and is what is said by a speaker ever enriched by pragmatics? An influential but controversial answer to the latter question is that the inputs to semantic interpretation contains representations of every contribution from context that is relevant to determining what is said, and that pragmatics never enriches the output of semantic interpretation. The proposal is bolstered by a controversial argument from syntactic binding designed to detect hidden syntactic structure. The (...) following contains an exposition and consideration of the argument. (shrink)

The orthodox view of proper names, Millianism, provides a very simple and elegant explanation of the semantic contribution of referential uses of names–names that occur as bare singulars and as the argument of a predicate. However, one problem for Millianism is that it cannot explain the semantic contribution of predicative uses of names. In recent years, an alternative view, so-called the-predicativism, has become increasingly popular. According to the-predicativists, names are uniformly count nouns. This straightforwardly explains why names can be used (...) predicatively, but is prima facie less congenial to an analysis of referential uses. To address this issue, the-predicativists argue that referential names are in fact complex determiner phrases consisting of a covert definite determiner and a count noun—and so, a referential name is a definite description. In this paper, I will argue that despite the appearance of increased theoretical complexity, the view that names are ambiguous between predicative and referential types is in fact superior to the unitary the-predicativist view. However, I will also argue that to see why this ambiguity view is better, we need to give up the standard Millian analysis. Consequently, I will first propose an alternative analysis of referential names that retains the virtues of Millianism, but provides an important explanatory connection to the predicative uses. Once this analysis of names is adopted, the explanation for why names are systematically ambiguous between referential and predicative types is both simple and elegant. Second, I will argue that the-predicativism has the appearance of being simpler than an ambiguity view, but is in fact unable to account for certain key properties of referential names without making ad hoc stipulations. (shrink)

In the tradition of quantified modal logic, it was assumed that significantly different linguistic systems underlie reference to individuals, to times and to ‘possible worlds’. Various results from recent research in formal semantics suggest that this is not so, and that there is in fact apervasive symmetrybetween the linguistic means with which we refer to these three domains. Reference to individuals, times and worlds is uniformly effected through generalized quantifiers, definite descriptions, and pronouns, and in each domain grammatical features situate (...) the reference of terms as near, far or ‘further’ from the actual or from a reported speech act. We outline various directions in which a program ofontological symmetrycould be developed, and we offer in theAppendixa symmetric fragment developed in a logic that can be seen as a compromise between an extensional and an intensional system. (shrink)

In the tradition of quantified modal logic, it was assumed that significantly different linguistic systems underlie reference to individuals, to times and to 'possible worlds'. Various results from recent research in formal semantics suggest that this is not so, and that there is in fact a pervasive symmetry between the linguistic means with which we refer to these three domains. Reference to individuals, times and worlds is uniformly effected through generalized quantifiers, definite descriptions, and pronouns, and in each domain grammatical (...) features situate the reference of terms as near, far or 'further' from the actual or from a reported speech act. We outline various directions in which a program of ontological symmetry could be developed, and we offer in the Appendix a symmetric fragment developed in a logic that can be seen as a compromise between an extensional and an intensional system. (shrink)

There are two main approaches to the problem of donkey anaphora (e.g. If John owns a donkey , he beats it ). Proponents of dynamic approaches take the pronoun to be a logical variable, but they revise the semantics of quantifiers so as to allow them to bind variables that are not within their syntactic scope. Older dynamic approaches took this measure to apply solely to existential quantifiers; recent dynamic approaches have extended it to all quantifiers. By contrast, proponents of (...) E-type analyses take the pronoun to have the semantics of a definite description (with it ≈ the donkey, or the donkey that John owns ). While competing accounts make very different claims about the patterns of coindexation that are found in the syntax, these are not morphologically realized in spoken languages. But they are in sign language, namely through locus assignment and pointing. We make two main claims on the basis of ASL and LSF data. First, sign language data favor dynamic over E-type theories: in those cases in which the two approaches make conflicting predictions about possible patterns of coindexation, dynamic analyses are at an advantage. Second, among dynamic theories, sign language data favor recent ones because the very same formal mechanism is used irrespective of the indefinite or non-indefinite nature of the antecedent. Going beyond this debate, we argue that dynamic theories should allow pronouns to be bound across negative expressions, as long as the pronoun is presupposed to have a non-empty denotation. Finally, an appendix displays and explains subtle differences between overt sign language pronouns and all other pronouns in examples involving ‘disjunctive antecedents’, and suggests that counterparts of sign language loci might be found in spoken language. (shrink)

Todd (2016) proposes an analysis of future-directed sentences, in particular sentences of the form 'will(φ)', that is based on the classic Russellian analysis of definite descriptions. Todd's analysis is supposed to vindicate the claim that the future is metaphysically open while retaining a simple Ockhamist semantics of future contingents and the principles of classical logic, i.e. bivalence and the law of excluded middle. Consequently, an open futurist can straightforwardly retain classical logic without appeal to supervaluations, determinacy operators, or any further (...) controversial semantical or metaphysical complication. In this paper, we will show that this quasi-Russellian analysis of 'will' both lacks linguistic motivation and faces a variety of significant problems. In particular, we show that the standard arguments for Russell's treatment of definite descriptions fail to apply to statements of the form 'will(φ)'. (shrink)

Kaplan claims in Demonstratives that no operator may manipulate the context of evaluation of natural language indexicals. We show that this is not so. In fact, attitude reports always manipulate a context parameter (or, rather, a context variable). This is shown by (i) the existence of De Se readings of attitude reports in English (which Kaplan has no account for), and (ii) the existence of a variety of indexicals across languages whose point of evaluation can be shifted, but only in (...) attitude reports. We develop an alternative account within an extensional framework with overt quantification over times, worlds and contexts. Various typological facts are discussed, esp. the distinction between English, Amharic and Ewe pronouns, and that between English and Russian tenses. (shrink)

In a recent paper (Linguistics and Philosophy 23, 4, June 2000), Jason Stanley argues that there are no `unarticulated constituents', contrary to what advocates of Truth-conditional pragmatics (TCP) have claimed. All truth-conditional effects of context can be traced to logical form, he says. In this paper I maintain that there are unarticulated constituents, and I defend TCP. Stanley's argument exploits the fact that the alleged unarticulated constituents can be `bound', that is, they can be made to vary with the values (...) introduced by operators in the sentence. I show that Stanley's argument rests on a fallacy, and I provide alternative analyses of the data. (shrink)

I present a puzzle for the standard, propositional semantic account of belief reports by considering novel inferences which it incorrectly predicts to be invalid under assumptions that are plausible by its advocates’ own lights. In response, I propose a conservative departure from the standard view on which certain ‘that’-clauses designate novel devices of semantic type that I call open propositions. After outlining some desiderata for a theory of open propositions, I provide some reasons for advocates of the standard view to (...) treat them as properties of a certain kind. Then I give a bridge principle between the core notions of belief and belief-about before showing how the resulting view can be implemented in accordance with formal theories of syntax and semantics. I bring out some of the consequences this investigation has beyond our semantic theorizing and conclude, more generally, that any response to the puzzle requires paying some surprising cost or another. (shrink)

Sometimes two expressions in a discourse can be about the same thing in a way that makes that very fact evident to the participants. Consider, for example, 'he' and 'John' in 'John went to the store and he bought some milk'. Let us call this 'de jure' coreference. Other times, coreference is 'de facto' as with 'Mark Twain' and 'Samuel Clemens' in a sincere use of 'Mark Twain is not Samuel Clemens'. Here, agents can understand the speech without knowing that (...) the names refer to the same person. After surveying many available linguistic and pragmatic tools (intentions to corefer, presuppositions, meanings, indexing, discourse referents, binding etc.) I conclude that we must posit a new semantic primitive to account for de jure coreference. (shrink)

I argue that linguistic meanings are instructions to build monadic concepts that lie between lexicalizable concepts and truth-evaluable judgments. In acquiring words, humans use concepts of various adicities to introduce concepts that can be fetched and systematically combined via certain conjunctive operations, which require monadic inputs. These concepts do not have Tarskian satisfaction conditions. But they provide bases for refinements and elaborations that can yield truth-evaluable judgments. Constructing mental sentences that are true or false requires cognitive work, not just an (...) exercise of basic linguistic capacities. (shrink)

Kit Fine has reawakened a puzzle about variables with a long history in analytic philosophy, labeling it “the antinomy of the variable”. Fine suggests that the antinomy demands a reconceptualization of the role of variables in mathematics, natural language semantics, and first-order logic. The difficulty arises because: (i) the variables ‘x’ and ‘y’ cannot be synonymous, since they make different contributions when they jointly occur within a sentence, but (ii) there is a strong temptation to say that distinct variables ‘x’ (...) and ‘y’ are synonymous, since sentences differing by the total, proper substitution of ‘x’ for ‘y’ always agree in meaning. We offer a precise interpretation of the challenge posed by (i) and (ii). We then develop some neglected passages of Tarski to show that his semantics for variables has the resources to resolve the antinomy without abandoning standard compositional semantics. (shrink)

There are two dominant approaches to quantification: the Fregean and the Tarskian. While the Tarskian approach is standard and familiar, deep conceptual objections have been pressed against its employment of variables as genuine syntactic and semantic units. Because they do not explicitly rely on variables, Fregean approaches are held to avoid these worries. The apparent result is that the Fregean can deliver something that the Tarskian is unable to, namely a compositional semantic treatment of quantification centered on truth and reference. (...) We argue that the Fregean approach faces the same choice: abandon compositionality or abandon the centrality of truth and reference to semantic theory. Indeed, we argue that developing a fully compositional semantics in the tradition of Frege leads to a typographic variant of the most radical of Tarskian views: variabilism, the view that names should be modeled as Tarskian variables. We conclude with the consequences of this result for Frege's distinction between sense and reference. (shrink)

Each of our theories of mental representation provides some insight into how the mind works. However, these insights often seem incompatible, as the debates between symbolic, dynamical, emergentist, sub-symbolic, and grounded approaches to cognition attest. Mental representations—whatever they are—must share many features with each of our theories of representation, and yet there are few hypotheses about how a synthesis could be possible. Here, I develop a theory of the underpinnings of symbolic cognition that shows how sub-symbolic dynamics may give rise (...) to higher-level cognitive representations of structures, systems of knowledge, and algorithmic processes. This theory implements a version of conceptual role semantics by positing an internal universal representation language in which learners may create mental models to capture dynamics they observe in the world. The theory formalizes one account of how truly novel conceptual content may arise, allowing us to explain how even elementary logical and computational operations may be learned from a more primitive basis. I provide an implementation that learns to represent a variety of structures, including logic, number, kinship trees, regular languages, context-free languages, domains of theories like magnetism, dominance hierarchies, list structures, quantification, and computational primitives like repetition, reversal, and recursion. This account is based on simple discrete dynamical processes that could be implemented in a variety of different physical or biological systems. In particular, I describe how the required dynamics can be directly implemented in a connectionist framework. The resulting theory provides an “assembly language” for cognition, where high-level theories of symbolic computation can be implemented in simple dynamics that themselves could be encoded in biologically plausible systems. (shrink)

In this paper I assume that syntactic structures contain items that function as variables over possible worlds (or things like possible worlds). I show that in certain syntactic positions we can use some variables but not other. I accordingly motivate a "binding theory" for the items that occupy these positions, and I discuss some consequences of this binding theory.